2 Samuel 21:1

THINGS PERTAINING TO THE REIGN OF DAVID

(2 Samuel 21-24)

THREE YEARS OF FAMINE;

RIZPAH'S LOVE;

MILITARY HEROES

Some of the problems and questions that confront us in this chapter are undoubtedly due to the imperfection of the text as it has come down to us. "There are many places in this chapter which have suffered much from the ignorance or carelessness of transcribers; and, indeed, I suspect that the whole has suffered so materially as to distort, if not misrepresent the principal facts."[1] Many other scholars have also mentioned the "corruption" of certain passages in this chapter; and, in all candor, how else could we possibly explain passages that stand in direct contradiction of God's Word as revealed in other passages?

True to the genius of the critical community of scholars, a defective chapter of the the Hebrew text of the O.T. is quickly chosen by them and labeled as an especially instructive section of God's Word! For example, Smith in the International Critical Commentary wrote that, "Few sections of the O.T. show more clearly the religious ideas of the times. Here we see God as the Avenger of a broken covenant requiring from the children (grandchildren) of the offender the blood that had been shed."[2] On the other hand, what we shall really see, as explained below, is another one of David's tragic mistakes!

With regard to the time when the events mentioned in this chapter occurred, it is unknown, there being not the slightest clue upon which an intelligent guess may be founded.[3] Still, some suppose that these things occurred, "In the beginning of the reign of David."[4]

THE THREE YEARS OF FAMINE THROUGHOUT ISRAEL

"Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David sought the face of the Lord. And the Lord said, `There is bloodguilt on Saul and on his house, because he put the Gibeonites to death.' So the king called the Gibeonites. Now the Gibeonites were not of the people of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; although the Israelites had sworn to spare them, Saul had sought to slay them in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah. And David said to the Gibeonites, `What shall I do for you, and how shall I make expiation, that you may bless the heritage of the Lord?' The Gibeonites said to him, `It is not a matter of silver or gold between us and Saul or his house; neither is it for us to put any man to death in Israel.' And he said, `What shall I do for you?' They said to the king, `The man who consumed us and planned to destroy us, so that we should have no place in all the territory of Israel, let seven of his sons be given unto us, so that we might hang them up before the Lord at Gibeon on the mountain of the Lord.' And the king said, `I will give them.'"

This episode recounts another of the shameful sins of David. In the first place, why should he have waited three whole years to seek the face of the Lord? What hindered him from seeking to know God's will after two full years instead of waiting three?

"There is bloodguilt on Saul and on his house, because he put the Gibeonites to death" (2 Samuel 21:1). Saul, by reason of his excessive zeal, attempted to exterminate the whole race of the Gibeonites, evidently thinking that God's instructions to Israel regarding their putting the nations of Canaan to death might still be implemented (Joshua 9:24). Of course, God's commandment in that instance was to Joshua, not to Saul. It was far too late for Israel to attempt to do that. Furthermore, Saul also ignored a very important fact. The Israelites had made a solemn covenant with the Gibeonites that they would not be harmed and that the Gibeonites would be slaves to Israel (Joshua 9:22). It was therefore a crime of maximum guilt when Saul wantonly violated that covenant.

"So the king called the Gibeonites" (2 Samuel 21:2). David here made the same mistake that Joshua and the elders had made during the Conquest in that, "They did not ask direction from the Lord (Joshua 9:14)." It is simply amazing that David would have asked the pagan Gibeonites what should be done; there was not a chance in a million that they would have, or even could have given him a correct answer.

"And David said to the Gibeonites, What shall I do for you? And how shall I make expiation?" (2 Samuel 21:3). David was here asking the pagan slaves of Israel what he should do instead of "asking direction of the Lord." Furthermore, God had legislated on this matter through Moses; and, in this case, David, like any other Oriental despot, was himself making the decision on what to do.

"The Gibeonites were not ... of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites" (2 Samuel 21:2). These people were actually Hivites (Joshua 9:7); but their being called Amorites here is no problem, because, "That is a common O.T. name for (any or) all of the pre-Israelite inhabitants of Canaan (as in Genesis 15:16; Deuteronomy 1:37; Joshua 5:1; 24:15,1 Samuel 7:14)."[5]

A number of scholars appeal to the fact that, "Bloodguilt rests on the murderer until it is expiated properly,"[6] but the Lord specifically stated that, "No expiation for the land can be made, for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of him that shed it" (Numbers 35:34). Furthermore, in certain cases, the ashes of a red heifer were involved (Deuteronomy 21:1-9). It is difficult to see how any of this can be applied to the case of the Gibeonites. Saul, the man who had attempted to destroy them, was already dead, and presumably the seven sons whom the Gibeonites requested David to deliver to them were innocent of any outrage whatever against the Gibeonites. Nowhere does this text say that God commanded David to grant any such hateful and vengeful request as that of the Gibeonites, and this writer simply cannot believe that it was right for him to do it.

"The Gibeonites said, Let seven of his sons be given to us that we may hang them" (2 Samuel 21:6). "The meaning of the word hang here is unknown."[7] It is generally believed to be some brutal, inhuman torturing death often practiced among heathen people. Furthermore, they left the bodies exposed from March 21 to the time of the autumn rains, directly contrary to and a wanton violation of God's Word (Deuteronomy 21:22-23). Of course, the radical critics seize upon this sinful action as an excuse to claim, "That law must have been of later origin."[8] Indeed! Indeed! It would be just as reasonable to affirm that because David committed adultery with Bathsheba and murdered Uriah that "the Ten Commandments had not been written at that time"! The critical canard that affirms a fifth- or sixth-century date for the Pentateuch is so weak and untrustworthy that those who have foolishly accepted it must never overlook an opportunity to re-assert their false allegation!

The nineteenth-century scholar Adam Clarke has a very discerning comment on this episode:[9]

"DID GOD REQUIRE THIS SACRIFICE OF SAUL'S SEVEN SONS; PRESUMABLY ALL OF THEM INNOCENT OF THE CRIMES OF THEIR FATHER? WAS THERE NO OTHER WAY OF AVERTING THE DIVINE DISPLEASURE? WAS THIS REQUISITION OF THE PAGAN GIBEONITES FOR THE PRIVILEGE OF TORTURING TO DEATH SAUL'S SONS TO BE RECEIVED BY DAVID AS AN ORACLE OF GOD? CERTAINLY NOT. GOD WILL NOT HAVE HUMAN BLOOD FOR SACRIFICE ANY MORE THAN HE WILL HAVE SWINE'S BLOOD. THE FAMINE MIGHT HAVE BEEN ENDED AND THE DIVINE FAVOR RESTORED; AND THE LAND PROPERLY PURGED; BY OFFERING THE SACRIFICES PRESCRIBED IN THE PENTATEUCH; AND BY A GENERAL HUMILIATION OF THE PEOPLE."

Before leaving this vengeful request of the Gibeonites, we should point out what a foolish request it was from their own viewpoint. Having been condemned by Israel to perpetual slavery, why did they not ask for an end of that? Instead, they wished to torture the sons of Saul! Not until the request of Salome who turned down half a kingdom to choose instead the head of John the Baptist is there anything in the Bible that matches this insane request of the Gibeonites. As Matthew Henry said, "They had a fair opportunity to get rid of their servitude, but they did not take it."[10]

God indeed promised that the sins of one generation might indeed be the reason for punishment of succeeding generations, but there is no record where God ever extended this privilege of executing innocents for the crimes of their ancestors into the hands of mortal and fallible men. These men David turned over to the Gibeonites were not sons of Saul in the ordinary sense, but grandsons, and there never was a Divine law that allowed men to execute grandsons for the crimes of their grandfather.

The scholars who excuse this outrage by relating it to the ancient custom of blood-vengeance (for which the cities of refuge were provided as a deterrent) which allowed the next of kin to kill the murderer have simply failed to see that this case resembles that custom in no manner whatever. Here we have, not the next of kin but a racial contingent murdering all of the offender's next of kin! There is no correspondence whatever in the two cases. In the case of the scriptural avenger of blood, the next of kin (singular) murdered the offender (singular) (and if the manslayer sought refuge in an appointed city, even that was allowed only after a judicial hearing); here we have, not the next of kin, but mere members (plural) of the same race murdering all the descendants (plural) of the offender.

Oh yes, ONLY SEVEN OF SAUL'S GRANDSONS WERE SLAIN, but that seven (a perfect number) was a token of all of Saul's whole generation, and the only reason the Gibeonites did not make their request include all of them was probably their knowledge that David would NOT have granted it, as indicated by his sparing Mephibosheth.

Thus, we see that what was in operation here was the old pagan system that, "If you kill some of us, we will wipe out your whole generation." That is exactly the system that the Biblical system regarding the avenger of blood (and its relation to the cities of refuge) was designed to supplant. We have never found in the Holy Bible one line that approves of the execution of members of a third generation to expiate the crimes of one who lived in the first generation. If anything like that is in God's Word, "Where is it"?